4/13

Paulthepawn59 ruthlessly exploited the weakness of a poorly played Exch Var of the  Caro-Kann Defense and dismissed his Albanian victim with a shot to the rook on move 35.

Behind in the early going, as black often is with this line, paulthepawn59 fought his way out of difficulty a couple of times, vasilispolena (sounds like a skin condition) fighting to save his position, while feeling it slip away. Buffaloing the guy from Albany with the odd-looking 17.Nd8 () our man watched as the amazed and frightened Albanian began to pull out his hair. Capitalizing on 30.h4?, paulthepawn59 built an unassailable lead resulting in the win of more material and, finally, capitulation on the 37^th move. paulthepawn59 is too good for Albania on any day that ends in “Y”!

Across the room...

Sootyhammer, meanwhile played the advanced Paulsen variation of the French Defense, by transposition, in the first game. Back_again swiped our man’s horsey on the 4^th move and it really ticked mister hammer.  Playing aggressively, Sootyhammer immediately took a lead and never looked back to back_again after move 10. Busted positionally, and about to lose more of his kids, back_again claimed he was somebody else and left without signing his score sheet. Sootyhammer, the intimidator!

But before that, Sootyhammer had the plain pieces and it was horse of a different color! Playing his now famous 1.d4! (Anand was watching one day – that’s when he started playing this. For real!) he steered toward the London System, while everyone was expecting the Colle. Tricking back_again into taking a pawn by playing his bishop away from any defense of it, Sootyhammer forced his opponent to waste time while the horse was chased around on the kingside and Sootyhammer positioned his pieces. The game was over with 19.Bd3?! but some dead men still walk, I guess. Back_again came back again and struggled on until threatened with mate on the 44^th. Two points Wales!

Ride ‘em hard and put ‘em away wet!

That’s all for now!